Alice Lang Rosen - August 5, 1991

Sharing Story with Surviving Family

Uh, she had, um, she was hiding out in, in Poland and Czechoslovakia with the, with the two children.

So they weren't in the camps.

They were not in concentration camps but there were children also--they were hidden away always in basements and cellars and...

Did you ever talk to the daughters about this? To Margo and her sister?

About my life?

Yeah.

Oh yes, we...we've talked. In fact, um, Margo and her husband saw my tape when they were here, you know, last.

But when you first met them or shortly after?

No, not, not too much.

No one talked.

No one really--this is just the shame of it, no one really talked much. Um, I had an aunt, or great aunt who lived in Lambsheim who's all these many years ago had already married a Gentile man at the time. And she never had children and uh, she stayed there--no one harmed her, you know. And sh...when we--when I came back, my father took me to her and she had pictures when I was a child, when my mother was young, when my father was young and she gave me--I'll show them to you, I have pictures. Uh, she gave me--was just a few--but she held on to them and she gave, you know, she gave them to me and that's as close, you know, as I've gotten. And, um, there's some family in Skokie, Illinois that was from my grandfather's side and uh, we saw them once or twice here. In fact, when we came to America uh, we tried to get in touch with my mother's brother who came here as a youngster and he wanted no part of me.

Really?

Yes, um, see he came to America when he was a teenager because he wanted to marry a Gentile woman and his parents naturally forbaded him to do that. And there was--must have been a big blow up but I don't remember because I was too young, just from what I heard and he just left. He left and came to America and didn't do anything to help them or anything at all. And so, when I came here, you know, my father wrote him a letter and he said, you know, "This is the only child of your sister and she would like to meet you and everything." And he wan...he didn't want to. And he sent a letter through his lawyer saying if there are any restitution claims coming to him for his parents or sister to give it to me, he doesn't want it and that was it. Never ever wanted to meet me or contact or anything. And uh, my family in New York, which was my father's brother and his wife and their children, um, they--see they sent the affidavit for us to come to America but once we were here they were so afraid that my father was going to be a burden on them. He, he didn't want--they were very, you know, strange. They didn't want much to do with us. And the furthest thing from my fathers mind was to be a burden on anyone. And then I have two male cousins, whose last name was Lang--their father was my father's other brother who was killed in Auschwitz--and they were sent to Switzerland, Geneva and that's how--I don't know their story at all but they survived and they live in New York too and they never--we tried to contact them and years ago I saw them in the very beginning, forty years ago but they never wanted to be in touch either. Just didn't want anything to do with us, so actually, I have no one except my, my adopted sisters and then my, my husband's uh, which is...